There are growing signs America’s “national political polarization is by now so well established that the only real debate is over the nature of our cultural, political, and religious conflict,” maintains David French at National Review. Some liken it to a civil war, but he suggests it’s “more akin to the beginning stages of a national divorce . . . so profound that Americans may not have the desire to fight to stay together.” Polls show Americans choose a political tribe “not so much because they love its ideas but rather because they despise their opponents.” That’s producing “a nation whose citizens increasingly live separate lives — living in separate locations, enjoying separate media and holding separate religious beliefs.”
Reporter: Bernie Sanders’ Religious Test for Christians

Sen. Bernie Sanders this week “flirted with the boundaries” of the Constitution’s ban on religious tests as a qualification for public office, contends Emma Green at The Atlantic. He attacked Russell Vought, an evangelical Christian named by President Trump as deputy budget director, for an article in which Vought said Muslims “do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned.” But what Sanders saw only as “Islamophobia and violence” Vought considered “a basic principle of his belief . . . that faith in Jesus is the only pathway to salvation.” And while “it’s one thing to take issue with bigotry, it’s another to try to exclude people from office based on their theological convictions.”

From the left: Sure Sign Cuomo Is Running — He Lies

No one “outside of New York is thinking about Andrew Cuomo’s 2020 presidential bid,” but he’s definitely running, says Rod Watson at the Buffalo News. How does he know? The governor “has quietly been practicing how to lie.” Like saying he couldn’t remember whether he’d attended “a secret fundraiser” and denying having followed criminal investigations “that threatened to sink his administration.” But while Cuomo’s “prevarications are hardly Trumpian yet,” not only “has he shown a willingness to get around the truth, he’s already just one step ahead of investigators — just like the man he would replace.” In “a very short time, he has gone from hyperbole to spin to ‘I’m going to insult your intelligence with something so blatantly false that only a fool would believe it.’ ”

Mideast desk: Latest Proof of Palestinian Rejectionism

Evelyn Gordon at Commentary takes note of a revelation this week by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper detailing the Obama administration’s “precise offer” to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “in the final stages of peace talks” and how Abbas “walked away without even deigning to respond.” The “initially balanced” offer, she notes, was altered “to accommodate more of Abbas’ demands,” including explicitly identifying East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital, but Abbas ignored it. Which is “exactly what happened the last time Abbas received an offer complying with almost all his demands” back in 2008. And also when President Bill Clinton “made a similar offer to Yasser Arafat in 2000.” In other words, the “simple reason why Israel still controls the West Bank” is that “the Palestinians have consistently refused repeated offers to let them have it.”
Culture critic: Bill Maher’s Media Memory Holes

Bill Maher “is getting a crash course in politically correct speech” in the continuing uproar over his use of the n-word, says Christian Toto at his Hollywood In Toto blog. Yet “when the ‘Real Time’ host trashed the Palin family in 2011, no one batted an eye. Variety didn’t call for his ouster.” This even though “the pure hate of his comments, targeting not just Sarah Palin” — using the c-word — “but her children (including a special-needs child) was off the proverbial charts.” Just recently, he also suggested President Trump’s daughter Ivanka “needs to manually stimulate him to change his mind on certain policies.” Again, “no outrage from HBO. No collective calls from the media to fire him.” Had he instead called House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi the c-word, “he might not have a gig at the moment.”